The two texts of the Treaty of Waitangi and their differences are key to Aotearoa\u2019s debates about colonization and constitutional matters. The English text, referred to as \u201cthe treaty,\u201d was written in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and then translated into M\u0101ori by two missionaries. It granted the Crown \u201call the rights and powers of sovereignty\u201d (the British monarch remains the head of state in now-independent New Zealand, and the government is often referred to as “the Crown”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The M\u0101ori language text, referred to as \u201cte tiriti,\u201d which was signed by the vast majority of M\u0101ori chiefs, is technically the version that carries weight in international law. The British had drafted the original treaty\u2019s English text and then had missionaries translate it in M\u0101ori, but it included some mistranslations. In a key section it uses the M\u0101ori word kawanatanga (a transliteration of the English \u201cgovernment\u201d or \u201cgovernance\u201d) as a translation for the English text\u2019s \u201csovereignty,\u201d whereas it should have used the more accurate rangatiratanga (chiefly authority). Indeed, the second article of te tiriti reserves rangatiratanga for M\u0101ori. Analysis of this text has led scholars and activists to argue that M\u0101ori never ceded their sovereignty, but were instead asking the Crown to control wayward settlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under modern international treaty law, the Indigenous text should carry more weight, because the English drafted both versions and you can’t have expected M\u0101ori, almost none of whom spoke English, to agree to something they couldn’t read. According to New Zealand\u2019s Waitangi Tribunal, \u201cThe contra proferentem rule that in the event of ambiguity such a provision should be construed against the party which drafted or proposed that provision (in this case the Crown) applies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
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The treaty is central to Aotearoa\u2019s colonial history. On the basis of a signed treaty, Britain claimed Aotearoa as a colony in 1840 and devolved that authority to a local parliament in 1852. The New Zealand government subsequently engaged in a range of settler-colonial practices, including war, the confiscation and theft of land, the erasure of Indigenous forms of knowledge and language, and the imposition of a range of political, social and economic systems imported from Europe. By the 1990s M\u0101ori landholdings were reduced to approximately six percent of Aotearoa. In 1975 the government created a Waitangi Tribunal which in 1985 was empowered to consider historical breaches of the treaty. Over the past 40 years there have been a series of agreements between the Crown and tribes, which have returned over $2 billion to M\u0101ori, with additional claims in process. This compensation remains minuscule \u2014 less than two percent of the value of land stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In spite of the damage to M\u0101ori and benefits to settlers of colonization, treaty settlement processes have been challenged by some white New Zealanders. These New Zealanders often believe that colonization only occurred in the past and was good for M\u0101ori, that M\u0101ori ceded sovereignty to the Crown by signing the treaty, that land stolen from M\u0101ori is justly owned by settlers, that Aotearoa is primarily a white European and English-speaking nation, and that European institutions and systems in Aotearoa are legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colonial hegemonies<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nAccording to Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, hegemony is dominant understandings of the world which maintain systems of dominance such as colonization. Hegemonies are neither fixed nor absolute but instead inherently unstable due to their exploitative and inequitable nature. They therefore require ongoing maintenance as this instability becomes evident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way that hegemonies are maintained is by what Georgina Stewart calls \u201ctruth myths\u201d \u2014 distorted understandings of history and social reality that present positive views of colonization. Truth myths help to maintain settler dominance in Aotearoa and enable those who benefit most from colonization to avoid examining and being accountable for their privileged positions in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, many New Zealanders continue to adopt \u201cwhite savior\u201d understandings of colonization, built on myths that pre-colonization M\u0101ori were uncivilized, violent and cannibalistic. These beliefs ignore the considerable evidence that M\u0101ori built a complicated society with considerable Indigenous knowledge, incredible journeys across the Pacific, and a range of approaches to harm, including systems of restorative justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These truth myths are supported by what Joanna Kidman has termed processes of \u201ccultural forgetting,\u201d where select elements of our histories are emphasised and celebrated while others are quietly forgotten. Cultural forgetting can be enforced by institutions such as museums, which are tasked with representing national histories. Museums can challenge citizens to consider what our colonial past means for how we approach social relations and politics in the present. However, they can also promote understandings of history that re-entrench hegemonic understandings of, for example, constitutional documents such as the treaty\/te tiriti, asking us to forget our colonial past to offload accountability in our colonial present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
M\u0101ori individuals and groups such as Te Waka Hourua, or TWH, have challenged museums to recognize the ways they maintain colonial hegemonies. These groups push museums to rethink how they represent cultural artefacts, demanding that they tell stories about colonial pasts that represent Indigenous understandings and encourage us to consider the injustices of our colonial present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Te Waka Hourua\u2019s campaign at Te Papa<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nTWH is an activist group in Aotearoa that brings together M\u0101ori and non-M\u0101ori allies to highlight the relationship between colonization and the climate crisis. The protest at Te Papa was the latest action in TWH\u2019s campaign to get the museum to change how the English version of the treaty is presented. Previous actions had involved petitioning for the exhibit to be changed and peacefully protesting the exhibit without causing any damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During this campaign, TWH highlighted how the \u201cSigns of a Nation\u201d exhibit maintains colonial hegemonies. First, the presentation of the two texts on large wooden panels which sit opposite each other represents them as translations of each other, rather than two documents with significant textual differences. Second, the presentation of the two texts on identical large wooden panels gives the texts similar status, rather than elevating the M\u0101ori text as legally more significant. Finally, because the vast majority of the museum\u2019s 1.5 million average annual visitors speak English rather than M\u0101ori, their ability to understand the M\u0101ori text is limited to what the museum provides in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TWH is an activist group in Aotearoa that brings together M\u0101ori and non-M\u0101ori allies to highlight the relationship between colonization and the climate crisis. The protest at Te Papa was the latest action in TWH\u2019s campaign to get the museum to change how the English version of the treaty is presented. Previous actions had involved petitioning for the exhibit to be changed and peacefully protesting the exhibit without causing any damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During this campaign, TWH highlighted how the \u201cSigns of a Nation\u201d exhibit maintains colonial hegemonies. First, the presentation of the two texts on large wooden panels which sit opposite each other represents them as translations of each other, rather than two documents with significant textual differences. Second, the presentation of the two texts on identical large wooden panels gives the texts similar status, rather than elevating the M\u0101ori text as legally more significant. Finally, because the vast majority of the museum\u2019s 1.5 million average annual visitors speak English rather than M\u0101ori, their ability to understand the M\u0101ori text is limited to what the museum provides in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n